A dear friend of mine was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and wrote me:
Dear Holly,
I was just thinking of you and wondering how you are doing. I also was wondering if you would mind checking some thing out that some friends informed us about. It is a product called max GXL. It helps with the production and preservation of Glutathione which I have never heard of. There is an interview with the man who came up with it that I thought you might find interesting. I am very curious what you think. The web-site is (edited out by me)
Here's my reply:
That is funny, I did my graduate research on glutathione, which is a natural antioxidant made of three amino acids bonded together, found in all of our cells. I was trying to invent new drugs that increase it.
So I can tell you all about that, I got my PhD on the topic. And yes, I
think glutathione is a wonderful thing!!! It is depleted in many
diseases and also helps our bodies get rid of toxins, as well as being a
general antioxidant. But don't buy it from that company. They are charging way too much, and in my opinion taking advantage of sick people. Over 60 bucks for less than a months supply of pills? Slimeballs!
You want my opinion about them? It would cause me to say too many bad words on this site, and I am not sure Amazon would print them.
I HATE it when supplement companies take advantage of sick people.
Not everyone needs to increase glutathione. Actually, I don't think taking supplements that boost glutathione will do a thing unless you are depleted of glutathione in the first place. That is what we find when it comes to taking antioxidants in general. But in your case it can't hurt to try something that will ensure your glutathione levels are up to normal. We find that glutathione is depleted in many chronic diseases and in cases of acute and long term poisoning. In those cases, increases glutathione to normal levels does help!
You can't really boost glutatione above normal, without it being recycled, but you can increase to normal levels that were depleted. (Of course, also keep up with your regular treatment of a healthy diet and lots of exercise!)
For a while I had a miserable job of poisoning hundreds of mice with acetaminophen ("Tylenol"), and then saving a portion of them form dying a horrible death of liver failure with either new drugs that I had synthesized or a standard treatment that boosts glutathione (called "NAC".) I did similar things to liver cells in culture dishes, (which are easier to deal with, emotionally, but less like people). NAC did tend to save the lives of the poisoned mice and liver cells, and it is what I will recommend for you.
You might be wondering, if you want to boost glutathione, why not just eat glutathione? The problem with taking glutathione itself is that it gets broken down when you eat it, before it gets into your cells. Your body might put a portion of it back together, a little bit, after eating it, but eating it isn't the most efficient way to get it, ironically.
The best stuff on the market for increasing glutathione, that I know of from research, is called N-acetyl cysteine, also abbreviated as "NAC". It may also be called "L-NAC", which is exactly the same thing. The second best thing for increasing glutathione is L-cysteine, also called cysteine, but I would not recommend that since large doses can cause nerve damage. NAC is a slow-release form of L-cysteine and is safer.
Although I don't usually take supplements ( I prefer to just eat lots of nice-tasting herbs in my food!), I have taken NAC on occasion, perhaps because I was made curious by my own research, but then I never knew if it was doing anything. At least I never had any side effects. Reasonable doses certainly can't hurt, unless you don't need it, in which case it hurts your wallet.
I'm also put off by the lack of regulation of the whole herb and supplement industry, so at the risk of saying this for the millionth time, I wouldn't take anything unless I checked out the product first with an independent lab that evaluates various supplement products, called Consumerlab. (You can find them at consumerlab.com. and search their database with a yearly subsciption fee which is fairly inexpensive, I think.)
Sadly, consumerlab has not yet evaluated NAC or other glutathione-boosting supplements just yet. However, NAC is fairly easy to synthesize and purify, although it does oxidize a bit over time. The oxidized version of it in the supplement is unlikely to hurt you, anyway (but less likely to work.) Unlike herbs, which are easily contaminated with pesticides and vary quite a bit in the concentrations of active ingredients, a bottle of NAC ought to be fairly pure. It also ought to be far less expensive than the product on that website you asked me evaluate.
At our local health food store, NAC should not be more than 10 bucks for a bottle of pills, I'm guessing. It was dirt cheap from the chemical companies our lab bought it from, too, so there is no reason for these supplement companies to inflate its cost.
I would definitely avoid any NAC combined with other ingredients, however. You don't know what those other ingredients may do.
I hope that helps!
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Bio
My fascination with herbs began early, as a little girl. I recall ambitiously hoping to use them to acquire magical powers. I would fly, become invisible, and save the world in three easy steps! My dollhouse contained a secret lab where the occupant could develop magical herbal potions.
My goals have grown more realistic over time, after working in actual labs with no magic potions to show for it. I am now content to quell gas pains with chamomile.
An offer to record my harp music when I was a teenager lead me to Salt Lake, where I was startled to find myself living for 20 years.
I found solace at the University of Utah. After getting bachelors of science in both biology and chemistry, I got my doctorate in medicinal chemistry. Medicinal chemists are trained to synthesize new drugs, or to discover them from nature.
I spent six years inventing new drugs at the University of Utah, as well as performing basic research in molecular biology. Dr. Jeanette Roberts stimulated my interest in antioxidant chemistry, chemoprotection and radioprotection, which was just starting attract the interest of mainstream science at the time.
Kahlil Gibran said "work is love made visible." What I love is in sharing my awe and enthusiasm for seemingly ordinary scientific phenomena with nonscientists. The most fun I ever had working was teaching chemistry full time to college students after I got my PhD, for ten years in Utah.
My accidental discovery an of an asteroid from a homemade observatory launched media opportunities with television and radio stations. (I recently named the asteroid after my husband.)
Now I am fortunate to devote my life to teaching and writing, and have left Utah. I write on an island in Lake Michigan, with my husband, and our cats, Quark and Alberio.
Here's how my book evolved:
Growing up, I collected popular herb books.
I grew annoyed, however, that many maintain distinguish between so-called "natural" and "synthetic" molecules, which in many cases are the same. This artificial separation is rooted in philosophy that is more religious than scientific, and not informative, since both can be helpful or injurious. This philosophical separation between "man" and "nature" is in my opinion harmful, because it provides a subconscious rationale for damaging our environment.
I was also frustrated that most popular herb books vaguely stated that a given herb was good for a particular problem, with no mention of what “good” meant, or of what was really happening.
As Richard Feynman said, knowing the name of a thing doesn’t give you knowledge about the thing. You can know common and Latin names of an herb, and you can even give it the name "antiinflammatory", but what is it doing? A process must be described to explain its action. Naming an entity to gain power over it is an ancient and intriguing theme--I believe it pops up in Rumpelstiltskin. Naming helps, but to really understand a thing, we need to know what it does, step by step, along its journey.
The omission of these processes in popular literature gives you the misleading impression that herbs produce an effect by some mysterious means. But herbs contain a smorgasboard of chemicals that go to different places in the body and do very interesting things.
Chemicals are mysterious because we can’t see them with our eyes. But they’re real, physical entities, and I hope I portray a vivid picture of what scientists know about their adventures.
After searching unsuccessfully over the years for book for laypeople that describes why each herb is thought to have its alleged effect, I at last decided to fill this void myself, with the aid of some wonderful editors at Marlowe and Co.
I hope that this site will stimulate interest in the topic and keep me in touch with common questions people have about it. So, email me if you have a question. I look forward to talking to you!
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